Moving Beyond Buzzwords: Culture, Leadership, and Performance in the Pursuit of Excellence

Description

Excellence is uncommon. Winning is hard. People are messy. Situations are complex. And there seems to be more people offering solutions than ever. Unfortunately, those answers often seem over-generalized, over-used, or over-marketed, which has cheapened words like performance, leadership, and culture. Performance requires great culture, which requires great leadership, yet great leadership often faces great resistance. Kyle Stark, President of Stark Contrast and former Assistant General Manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates, will share some lessons learned from sport, military, and business that provide a stark contrast to the buzzword approach.

Speaker

Kyle Stark, President of Stark Contrast

Kyle Stark helps leaders drive great cultures - alignment, selection, development, execution - in sport, business, and military environments. Coach, leader, consultant. Student and practitioner of leadership. He has spent over 20 years coaching and leading with 15+ at the highest level of professional baseball. Fortunate to be a part of some world class teams, he has participated in success everywhere he has been - often without maximum resources so culture had to drive it. This includes helping the Pittsburgh Pirates turn their franchise around going from averaging 95 losses per year before his arrival to being in the top 10 in wins over the last nine years there - while having the third-lowest payroll, breaking a 20-season losing streak, earning Baseball America's Organization of the Year, and building a top-ranked development system. Before that, he helped Cleveland in their turn-around, resulting in being one game away from the World Series, and had previously helped St. Bonaventure University win its only conference championship in school history. Prior to engaging on his professional journey, he earned his MBA and JD. More importantly, Kyle is a husband to Heather and father to Chance (23) and Cooper (16).